Hi Tony,
All the marketing material for the class said and still says that
the
workbook availability is October, and so far I'm hitting that target.
Our development and release process is different than some other
training
companies you may have dealt with in the past.
First and foremost, we develop all of our content in house. While
this may not seem like a big deal to some, it boils down to the
difference between a cookie-cutter Cisco Learning Partner like Global
Knowledge and us. The CLPs buy their content from someone else, and
then employ a contract instructor who many times ends up being a
professional powerpoint slide reader. With INE on the other hand, I
personally developed the courseware that I delivered, and am personally
developing the workbook. This means that if you have questions about
it, you are only one degree removed from me. The CLPs generally have
no outlet for interaction with the class instructors, other than the
few days you are actually in the class, nor do they offer post class
support or interaction with any of the content authors.
The second important difference is our
Investment
Protection Program. When you take a class from a CLP, you get your
course kit and your 5-day training, and then you are out the door. If
the exams are updated and the course content gets updated, you're not
going to get these updates from the CLP unless you buy the class
again. Part of this stems from the previous problem I mentioned; the
CLP didn't develop the courseware in the first place, they just bought
it from someone else. With INE on the other hand, we understand that
many customers, like yourself, are not large corporations that have
multi-million dollar training budgets, and hence it doesn't make sense
to ask you to keep buying the same product over and over.
Our IPP says that if the exam content changes - more often read as
when,
not
if - you get the new updates to the courseware or workbooks
or whatever for FREE. This stems from our leadership in the CCIE
training space, in which the CCIE Lab Exam changes every 18-24 months
or so, but many engineers take years in order to prepare. This means
that if you use a CLP for this training, and you don't finish the
certification before it changes, you are basically SOL and you have to
re-invest in training or content again in order to continue. The point
is that when you take training from us, we are in it together for the
long haul.
In order for us to offer this, our content release process has, and
always will be,
incremental. For example with the first beta
release of the CCNP Lab Workbook, I announced that the date would be
Monday, because I knew I could hit that target (within a few days at
least ;) ) with the content that was ready for release, specifically
the BCMSN portion. If you compare this to the CLP program or Cisco
Press, whose development cycle is on average 12-18 months, there's no
way they can compete. For example there are
still no official
Cisco Press books for the CCSP exams out, because many times they
understand that their development cycle isn't feasible in a case like
that.
All in all, if time is of the essence for passing ISCW and ONT in
your case, go through the videos, take notes on every example that I do
on the CLI and the SDM, and try it out yourself. The hardware spec for
all exams is the same one that I posted in the workbook, and the same
one that I used during the class. The CCNP Lab Workbook is essentially
a culmination of these exercises that I already demoed in class, just
in a more concise and easier to follow format.
Either way the CCNP Lab Workbook will automatically be updated in
an incremental fashion as I complete it, and posted on the members
site. Next will be BSCI, followed shortly by ISCW and ONT. The
missing ONT recordings will also be posted soon; this was due to an
unrelated server issue, so I have to re-record them.
As always please feel free to contact me here or directly via email
if you have questions or comments.
Thanks,
tonhe wrote:
Thats what I started on last night...but I think you're missing my
point..
I'm more upset with the way the entire thing was marketed.
Internetwork Expert - The Industry Leader in CCIE Preparation
http://www.internetworkexpert.com